Iceland best place to live, Africa worst: UN

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071127/lf_nm_…opment_index_dc

Iceland best place to live, Africa worst: UN

Tue Nov 27, 12:08 PM ET

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Iceland has overtaken Norway as the world’s most desirable country to live in, according to an annual U.N. table published on Tuesday that again puts AIDS-afflicted sub-Saharan African states at the bottom.

if(window.yzq_d==null)window.yzq_d=new Object(); window.yzq_d[‘xO6ZP9j8Ymk-’]=‘&U=13bn13dai%2fN%3dxO6ZP9j8Ymk-%2fC%3d617029.11787135.12249826.1442997%2fD%3dLREC%2fB%3d4925923’; Rich free-market countries dominate the top places, with Iceland, Norway, Australia, Canada and Ireland the first five but the United States slipping to 12th place from eighth last year in the U.N. Human Development Index.

But the index, blending 2005 figures for life expectancy, educational levels and real per capita income, finds that all 22 countries falling into its “low human development” category are in sub-Saharan Africa, with Sierra Leone last.

In 10 of these countries, two children in five will not reach the age of 40, said the compilers at the U.N. Development Program. Last year’s report said HIV/AIDS had had a “catastrophic effect” on life expectancy in the region.

The index ranks 175 U.N. member countries plus Hong Kong and the Palestinian territories. It does not include 17 countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia, because of inadequate data.

Norway had held top spot for six years but was edged into second place by Iceland this year because of new life expectancy estimates and updated figures for gross domestic product, or GDP, the report said.

U.N. officials played down the significance of minor short-term shifts in the rankings including the slide in the U.S. position. They said if subsequent data for the year in question been available for last year’s report, the United States would have been in 10th, not eighth place.

The United States scores high on real per capita GDP, which at $41,890 is second only to that of Luxembourg ($60,228), but less well on life expectancy – joint last in the top 26 countries, along with Denmark and South Korea, at 77.9 years.

Japanese have the longest life expectancy – 82.3 years – and Zambians the lowest, at 40.5.

The report said most countries had seen their human development index rise over the last 30 years, but in 16 it was lower than in 1990, and in three – the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia and Zimbabwe – lower than in 1975.

Per capita GDP is 45 times higher in Iceland than in Sierra Leone.

The United Nations has published its human development index every year since 1990.

(Writing by Patrick Worsnip at the United Nations, editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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I wouldn’t mind the UN headquarters moved to Iceland.

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I could have told you that Africa is a crappy hellhole without an UN study.

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Iceland has a population of only 300 thousand, and a stable and homogeneous population, which, when combined with a relatively free market, makes a high living standard possible. What’s really exceptional is how the United States has allowed many millions of poor immigrants become prosperous citizens. Unfortunately, economic opportunity is harder to measure than the result of past economic achievement.

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Also throw in zero spending for military / full protection by the US / NATO, no EU membership, no land borders and no natural resources except fish (which can be a bonus concerning the development of a free market).

In addition it is questionable how one can compare the level of education by the ‘gross enrollment ratio’ (ignoring the quality of the education and ignoring that working instead of studying might be a better choice in some situations) between the countries and it is questionable that the GDP is logarithmized in the HDI formula.

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The United States scores high on real per capita GDP, which at $41,890 is second only to that of Luxembourg ($60,228), but less well on life expectancy – joint last in the top 26 countries, along with Denmark and South Korea, at 77.9 years.

The fact is that “life expectancy” and other UN statistics are blatantly distorted against the United States and in favor of socialism.

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I wouldn’t mind the UN headquarters moved to Iceland.

Good idea, but I like the idea of the South Pole, then let’s see how many of them get on the global warming band wagon!

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The fact is that “life expectancy” and other UN statistics are blatantly distorted against the United States and in favor of socialism.

How so? Fake statistics? Or do you object to the use of “life expectancy” in itself as a criterion?

As far statistics go, I’d take anything that comes from a not-free country with skepticism.

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How so?

Did you follow the link?

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The fact is that “life expectancy” and other UN statistics are blatantly distorted against the United States and in favor of socialism.

U.S. life expectancy is not as high as it should be because Americans (on average) do not exercise enough and the diet leaves a bit to be desired. More fruit and salad, less fatty meat and a better exercise routine would add five years to our life expectancy.

If you drive to work (as most of us must) park your car a mile from the office and walk the rest of the way (weather permitting, of course). That will burn an additional 200 calories. If one does not compensate for the calorie burn by eating more that will result in a twenty pound weight loss in a year. The time expenditure is about a half hour and during the walk one can think, or can center his thoughts, so it is not wasted time.

Bob Kolker

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How can a statistical measure be distorted against someone or something? As long as it is accurate, it merely states something about reality. The interpretation of the statistic may be distorted, the conclusions one draws from it may be distorted, but not the statistic, in- and of- itself.

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Speaking of dubious statistics… this is a fair bit OT, note:

If you drive to work (as most of us must) park your car a mile from the office and walk the rest of the way (weather permitting, of course). That will burn an additional 200 calories. If one does not compensate for the calorie burn by eating more that will result in a twenty pound weight loss in a year. The time expenditure is about a half hour and during the walk one can think, or can center his thoughts, so it is not wasted time.

I dispute these figures.

On the treadmills I use at the gym (they all give the same numbers), set to 5.5kph (3.5mph) and a 10 percent incline, the calorie burn rate is 575 per hour (I can’t remember the last digit exactly, but it is 570 something). That means 200 takes 21 mins, by which time I have walked 1.2 miles - at a semi-brisk pace on a steep incline all the way, mind. By the end of my usual half hour of that I am dripping all over the place, which is not a good look (or smell) for an office worker and probably not a good idea for a manual worker who’s just about to put 8-12 hours in. Fitter people than I would fair better, but I would still not recommend forgoing a shower!

It has been a while since I ever did no-incline on the treadmill, but IIRC the rate was circa 270 calories per hour at 3.5mph. However, you are talking about 2-2.5mph. Work = force times distance, ie linearly proportional to walking speed (more or less), so 2.5mph would put the burn rate at circa 190 per hour. Thus your 200 calories would take over an hour to burn and mean covering more than 2.5 miles. Going by distance instead, a 1 mile walk at a normal pace on flat terrain will only burn about 76 calories. At 9 calories per gram of fat then (for argument’s sake) a mile to work and a mile back is about 17 grams of fat burned per day, about three ounces per 5-day week, or 9lb in a 48-week year.

Either

  • all the treadmills at my local gym are all seriously - and identically - out of calibration, or

  • I have done something wrong, or

  • your figures are way off.

This doesn’t mean walking isn’t a good idea - I do the above 7 days a week myself - but let’s not exaggerate its effects. 9lb in a year is not too shabby, but it is less than half of 20lb. Then there’s safety (of both car and person), and other weather-related issues besides mere inclemency (eg as a red-head I will burn to a crisp on even a cool cloudy day if I’m outdoors for long enough - and an hour total is plenty long enough), and so on. I wouldn’t advise being swift to tut-tut those who choose to drive.

JJM

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How can a statistical measure be distorted against someone or something? As long as it is accurate, it merely states something about reality. The interpretation of the statistic may be distorted, the conclusions one draws from it may be distorted, but not the statistic, in- and of- itself.

If you follow Inspector’s link you will find that the life-expectancy of a country like the USA cannot be neatly juxtaposed against the life-expectancy of a figure of a country like Iceland and be able to draw any conclusion about the state of health in one country compared to the other. There are non-medical factors at work in life-expectancy that are totally different from one country to the next, and hence the ranking is the attempt to compare the merits of apples versus oranges on the basis that they’re both round fruit.

JJM

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If you drive to work (as most of us must) park your car a mile from the office and walk the rest of the way (weather permitting, of course). That will burn an additional 200 calories. If one does not compensate for the calorie burn by eating more that will result in a twenty pound weight loss in a year. The time expenditure is about a half hour and during the walk one can think, or can center his thoughts, so it is not wasted time.

Bob Kolker

There you go again, slinging that line, Bob. It was amusing at first, but I really must speak up this time. For many - I might venture to say most - people, however, your prescriptions of carlessness (or less-car-ness) are far from ideal. There are plenty of ways to get exercise and not all of them involve being inconvenienced transportationally or engaging in low-intensity steady-state activity (known by some as “soul-crushing tedium”). Some poor souls are actually enriched by such activities (hard to believe I know!), but luckily there are other, more developed, folks out there who have created exercises such as weight-lifting which are more in tune with our refined and superior tastes. And as a bonus, these higher-intensity activities also do not require such an expenditure of time, which is a valuable asset to many. Perhaps not to those who have nothing better to do, but to many it is.

Was that a cheap shot? Hmm, a better question would be if your own screeds against the car contained similar cheap shots. 'Tis all in fun, then.

So, gentle ribbing aside:

The point I am seeking to drive home is that it is vulgar for you to sell your personal tastes as universal principles that us poor benighted idiots ought to adapt to. If you like to pedal a nineteenth-century toy as your primary means of transportation, then all power to you. Some folk eat invertebrates, in fact I am told they pay princely sums to do so, and I’m sure that it’s all jolly good fun for them. I, however, would rather be smacked repeatedly about the face than eat sea-bug (“lobster”) or give up my eight cylinders of ground-shaking automotive bliss for something that is impractically slow, physically painful, open to the elements, and sets me arriving at my destination stinking and covered in sweat. And when I say “impractically” I mean that literally as it would be physically impossible for me to accomplish in it what I do on a daily basis in my car. And don’t even try to tell me that I’m living the rest of my life wrong because I can’t accomplish it with an anachronistic device powered by manual labor - the implication being that we should all live like hippies in our “sustainable” hives of human filth.

To sum, if you like your pedal-bike there so much that you’ll build your life around it then good for you - I bear you no ill will and genuinely hope that you enjoy your lifestyle choice. To prescribe it as a universal taste which we all ought to share (a distinct practice from simply saying how much you like it), however, is vulgar. Maybe some of us (me, for instance) are just built differently and thus don’t enjoy that kind of exercise - much less enjoy it enough to let it be the determining factor of where we live, work, eat, and so forth. And it is beyond ridiculous to actually look down your nose at the rest of us for not living like primitives.

Furthermore, if you do some simple counting of calories it is painfully obvious that the primary problem out there is diet, in which so much energy can so easily be consumed as to make any exercise null and void.

But the point, which I don’t want lost here, is that Americans’ health is not actually behind the rest of the world as they claim. Even with all the fat-assery. This is just one more in the series of commie lies.

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On the treadmills I use at the gym (they all give the same numbers), set to 5.5kph (3.5mph) and a 10 percent incline, the calorie burn rate is 575 per hour (I can’t remember the last digit exactly, but it is 570 something).

John, you are more right than you know. Those machines are set to give you the calories burned by your activity plus the calories you would burn anyway just by standing there. This is why they ask for your age, weight, and so forth. So if anything, that kind of exercise burns even less than that - on average about 83 calories less per hour than indicated.

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But the point, which I don’t want lost here, is that Americans’ health is not actually behind the rest of the world as they claim. Even with all the fat-assery. This is just one more in the series of commie lies.

The U.S. is (on the average) overweight. That is why there is so much disease related to heart and circulation. We also have a rising rate of diabetes because people eat a generally unhealthy diet. The number of cases of so called adult diabetes seen in youngsters is quite alarming. Fortunately it is largely avoidable. More fruit and veggies, less fatty meat. It is cheaper and healthier.

By the way, you do not have to give up your insolent chariot (and its eight cylinders). Just park it a half mile or a mile from where you work and walk a bit (weather permitting, of course). Moving one’s lard ass is a life promoting activity. One will (on average) live longer and more in comfort and less in disease. A moderate walk is also a stress reducer and a chance to collect one’s thoughts. Think of it as mobile meditation. Or if proving theorems is more to taste, one can prove theorems and walk at the same time. One can even walk and chew gum, if that is what one wishes to do.

It would also help to give up the cigarettes if one is already a tobacco addict.

Your mentor Ayn Rand died ten years sooner than she had to because she romanticized self induced air pollution. Fire at Man’s fingertips indeed! It is shit being sucked into every nook and cranny of the lung tissue.

This advice has nothing, not a thing, to do with politics. It is about staying alive and being healthier (and perhaps happier) for it.

By the way, for short trips during the rush-crush, I make better time on my 19th century toy than you do with your insolent chariot. If you live in NYC average cross town traffic moves about 8 mph during the rush-crush. The bicycle couriers do about twice that. Which is why bicycle couriers riding updated versions of the 19th century toy are used to carry parcels. I generally average 12 to 13 mph ( I am well stricken in years ). When I was a cub, I could do 15-18 mph and not even get winded. For short trips this is not bad and the amount saved at the pump can add up.

Bottom line. Americans lack nothing material in their lives (on the average) so as to preclude a long health lifetime. There is no reason (other than diet or lack of exercise) we can’t have a life span like the Japanese currently 5-7 years longer than ours. We have the means to avoid or prevent contagious disease (vaccinations and anti-biotics). We have the means to detect serious medical conditions before they become overwhelming. We have the material resources to help people maintain their health (if they so wish). It is all there. It can be made available at affordable prices in the free (or nearly free) market system. So why aren’t the American folks doing it? Laziness. To much fat between the ears and around the belt line. Too much mindless nibbling. If we wished, we could easily show the world that we “bloated capitalists” can live longer happier lives than the socialisti.

Shame. Shame. Shame. Shame on us.

Bob Kolker

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Shame. Shame. Shame. Shame on us.

Shame on you for blaming us.

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Shame on you for blaming us.

Lard asses bring unhealth upon themselves. I am not blaming Us (as in all of us). I am chiding the lard asses (who are also fat heads for not taking care of their bodies). I am doing the Sane Thing. I am taking care of my One and Only Body and in doing so, I am avoiding pain (that is my version of hedonism, by the way), saving money and making as sure as I can that I will live to see my grandchildren enter their young adulthood. Who knows, I might even live long enough to hold a great-grandchild in my arms.

As I pointed out, we have no material reason, here in the U.S. that our citizens can be not only be prosperous, but also bright and beautiful. If I recall from -The Nichomachean Ethics-, that is what Virtue (arete) is all about. Being excellent and beautiful in our doings. We don’t have to be a nation of couch potatoes mindless nibbling stuff that is bad. And if there are people who choose to do that, I can only hope that l the private health insurance firms will change them a higher premium. I am in no mood to subsidize their stupidity.

The U.S. is a blessed land. Those among us who work hard and productively shower their blessings on all of us. It is a shame if we don’t take those blessings as they are offered to us. Seize the day! Enjoy the blessing!

Bob Kolker

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You know what, why stop at cars vs. bicycles. Let’s power ferries by oarsmen! Isn’t that the dream job of millions of Americans eager to improve their health? I’m sure if a company posted a job advert, they’d be flooded with applications!

:thumbsup:

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You know what, why stop at cars vs. bicycles. Let’s power ferries by oarsmen! Isn’t that the dream job of millions of Americans eager to improve their health? I’m sure if a company posted a job advert, they’d be flooded with applications!

If they have those, it would probably be powered by illegal immigrants.